


The Fragile Lines We Cross

by ColiOli



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 18:34:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11469303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColiOli/pseuds/ColiOli
Summary: Prompt: "We are more than friends and you fucking know it!"





	The Fragile Lines We Cross

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for any mistakes that were left neglected.  
> I tried to find them all but them some sneaky bastards.

“I see you everywhere I go. You’re just there inside my thoughts all the time! I see you when I look at familiar faces, I see you in cheap beer cans, I see you every time I look at that shack! I can’t stand it!” Paul briskly wipes at his cheek. “If you could just tell me what you want… please,” Paul adds the last part without tearing his eyes away.

Daryl turns his gaze to where his arm is slack with his crossbow held firmly in his grasp. He seems to hesitate with his answer, seeming unsure with his chosen words when they spill out. “We’re just friends.”

Paul takes a step away and turns his back to Daryl. Daryl can’t see the way Paul rests his own hand over his forehead. He can’t see the two hot tears that quietly run down his face, briefly warming Paul’s winter-chapped skin against the cold air.

He suddenly whisks back around, his body rigid and boiling hot with the wave of emotions that flashes through his arms, down his legs –stemming directly from his heart. Yet Daryl still refuses to look him in the eye, instead risking careful glances, unable to allow himself the moment to take Paul in.

The young man is exposed and raw, his voice cracking as his voice raises, “We’re not just friends and you fucking know it!”

Paul knows Daryl looks at the tears freely running over his copper beard.

Daryl swallows, unable to peel his eyes away as he watches the tears disappear somewhere in the hair on Paul’s chin.

 

 

_Daryl’s forehead sweeps across Paul’s beard. The feel of it causes him to pull back with a bated breath. He withdraws on his knees and runs a shaking hand through his hair._

_“Daryl, what’s wrong?” Paul whispers, sitting up so he can grab Daryl at the elbows._

_His voice is hushed, but it carries with it a deep gravelly tone. “I can’t.”_

_Paul’s hands never leave Daryl’s arms, and Daryl never once acts like he wants to pull away. It seems like the moments fade into one, with time passing just between them._

_“Just kiss me.”_

_Paul can’t see the features on Daryl’s face, but he can read the outline of Daryl’s emotions given away by the moonlight sneaking through the broken glass of the window that sits above them. Daryl looks away._

_He uses Daryl’s locked position to the ground in order to pull himself onto his knees so they can meet face to face. “Trust me,” Paul whispers as he gently tugs on Daryl’s jawline._

_Daryl lets Paul’s hand pull at his head so their lips eventually meet. He doesn’t pull away, allowing Paul to kiss him gently, slowly coaxing Daryl to part his lips. When Paul slips his tongue inside Daryl’s mouth Daryl lets out a shattered breath and pulls back._

 

Deep within Daryl resists the urge to grab onto Paul now –to shake him and tell him to shut up, tell him that he’s right! They’re more than friends and he knows it. How he _fucking_ knows it! But still Daryl can’t meet those hurt green eyes to tell him that.

They stand there outside the gates of the Hilltop with nothing but the clear night sky and the illumination of candles peeking through Colonial windows. Paul’s exhales are ragged and ghosts of his breath escape him with each release of air.

Paul swallows. “So all those times then, they meant _nothing_ to you?”

“They weren’t nothing.”

Somehow those words strike deep within. They wouldn’t be here now if ‘they weren’t nothing’. If only Daryl could realize what all this meant to him –to be standing here now, cracking himself open possibly never able to seal himself up again. Paul shoves against Daryl, hardly able to move the man at all. “Then what were they?” He pushes again, this time able to move the strong form an inch. “What were they Daryl?” He’s shouting, the croaking in his voice evident.

Paul lets a sob escape him and he once again puts distance between them. He lets himself cry, feeling the full burn of his eyes, yet knowing it’s nothing in comparison to his heart.

Though Paul stands there, his sobs filling the night air, Daryl never once turns to leave. He hangs his head and focuses on the frozen cracks of Earth that bleed from one into the other like a channel of winter that stretches across the landscape.

He tears himself away from staring at the web when Paul’s voice once again cuts through the air. “I let myself open up to you.” He looks up at Daryl, “You don’t know how hard that was for me.”

The hunter can’t help but meet those eyes. He nods. “’know. Was for me too.”

 

 

_Paul presses Daryl against the stained mattress, laughing as he topples over the larger man. Daryl instantly grabs onto and catches Paul before he plummets off the side of the bed, grinning to himself as he latches onto the younger man like he wouldn’t have ever let harm come his way._

_Paul’s cheeks are blushed from the amount of wine he’d ingested that evening. Daryl had resisted against the idea of drinking it, but there wasn’t anything else the red-neck would consider as a proper drink to replace it, so eventually he gave in._

_He even drank it from the wine glass Paul handed it to him in. In truth he only drank from it because he couldn’t help but enjoy the way the hippy smiled when he’d presented it, knowing full well the amount of distaste Daryl would have over drinking wine from the brittle glass._

_And there Paul sat above him now, straddling him at the waist and looking at him with those fragile eyes, likely to break with the same ease as those wine glasses. But those eyes expected so much more from him. They asked of him what he’d never been ready to give._

_Until now._

_Paul grabs at his own button-up and pulls it over his head. He allows Daryl to run his hands across his chest, eventually down the trail of hair on his stomach and to the button of his pants. Daryl hesitates with himself before he un-does it._

_Paul gasps when he feels Daryl’s fingers slink along his waist-line and play with the soft skin just above his erection._

_“Daryl,” he whispers, meeting him in the eye._

_They spend the next hour kissing each other, small whispers of their lips tell secrets across another’s body. When Daryl removes his last layer of clothing Paul instantly stops when he sees the scars. Paul meets him in the eyes, their unspoken communication eventually lost by a joining of their lips._

_He’s rocking against Daryl several moments later. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” he says again as if knowing Daryl needs this reassurance right now._

_That had been the first time that Paul had sex with someone he loved._

 

They wait in the darkness, at a stand-still for what to say. “Daryl, after this war is over, I will leave you alone. Until then…” he pauses, “I can’t go out there with you anymore.”

Daryl swallows.

Both men shudder more or so less from the stiff breeze that whisks between them.

Paul takes several steps as he walks backwards, not once looking away from Daryl.  “Thanks for everything Daryl. Sorry it went where it did, knowing now that you didn’t see it the same as I did.” He turns to walk back towards the brick buildings, leaving Daryl alone at the edge of the fence line.

“Hold up.”

Paul pauses.

Daryl hesitates with himself, eventually swiping his thumb across his mouth before long strides forward.

Paul’s pale green eyes are red and still covered in a thin layer of wetness when Daryl meets his eyes. Daryl doesn’t look away, his lips tight, his heart beating.

“I don’t want you to go.”

Paul looks up at Daryl. “I have to. I can’t do this not knowing what this means to you. My whole life –ever since I realized why I couldn’t love a woman, and then threw myself at any man willing to prove to me I was alive –that whole time, I never felt the way with them that I do with you.” Paul takes a breath. “I can’t live this life each day, on runs with you, here without you, always thinking about you and not knowing if you’ll one day just be gone because it was always that easy for you to walk away.”

The one thing Daryl had been wanting to do this whole time was grab into Paul and take away the tears. He’d been unable to knowing that if he did, he’d be admitting to himself that there was a large part of him that wanted Paul to be okay, too. And he hadn’t ever let himself think it until then. What was Paul to him if he were to pull him close without the expectation of sex to follow? He’d never had the kind of bond with anyone that if they were to touch it’d simply be for the sake of comfort.

This whole time he’d been doing everything to keep that distance between them, even during their nights together, that he hadn’t seen just how badly Paul wanted to be doing the opposite. Daryl hadn’t ever known it until now, that this wasn’t just a game for Paul. Despite this fucked up world, Paul still wanted the real thing that made them human.

Daryl takes a deep breath, exhaling through his nose. He meets the younger man’s gaze and through that connection he allows a stone wall to collapse –the one that releases a cascade of everything he’d been facing with that man over the past few months.

He drops his crossbow to the ground and grabs onto the younger man, pulling him against his chest as he wraps his arms around the smaller form. He presses his face into the crook of Paul’s neck and breathes in that stupid conditioner that he always gives Paul a hard time for using, breathes in the smell of his leather trench coat that for the life of Daryl he can’t understand. But one thing lately he did understand, and that was Paul.

And if it meant throwing himself on the line just to show Paul that he meant something to him too, then he’d do it. Because to be honest with himself he’d never be able to live the same without him.

Paul has his arms wrapping around Daryl’s body, his face pressed against the strong man’s chest. “I love you Daryl.”

Daryl puts his lips on the top of Paul’s head. “I love you too.”

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
